Thursday, September 11, 2014

Remembering them, one at a time

One of the things that most impressed me in the WTC recovery work was the ordinary goodness of so many lives. The New York Times' Portraits of Grief are brief clips of many of the people who died that day. Each 9/11 it is good to review a few of these neighbors.

Fluent in Arabic, Hebrew and English, Eli Chalouh, 23, moved easily among the diverse communities to which his languages gave him access. He spoke Arabic at home, of course: he moved here with his family from Damascus, Syria, when he was 14.

At his new job at the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, in the World Trade Center, he spoke Arabic with his Egyptian colleagues, who got a kick out of him. Mr. Chalouh was not Muslim; he was a Syrian Jew, who learned Hebrew at the yeshiva he attended in Brooklyn.

America was the country he wanted to wrap his future around. He was always in a rush, determined to cram every moment with English studies and other courses: he was so disciplined that he allotted himself only 15 minutes of television at night.

His efforts were beginning to pay off. He had just graduated with near-perfect grades from Long Island University, a member of the honor society and voted by the faculty the most outstanding accounting student of 2001.

Industrious, yes, but enormously sunny and engaging, as well. "Whatever you asked him he would do, and whatever you wouldn't ask, he would volunteer to do," said a supervisor at work, Eddie Jaeger. "He was an unbelievably nice kid."

For Sara Elizabeth Low, a career as a flight attendant was a birthright. Family vacations meant piling in the back of her father's small plane and heading from Batesville, Ark., to the Gulf Coast or Rocky Mountains. "Sara didn't think there was too much difference between being in the plane and being in a car," said her mother, Bobbie Low.

Poised, collected, yet prone to sudden streaks of silliness — a personality to calm even the most enraged traveler. And her job sated her wanderlust, her need for cosmopolitan glamor.

"She would call us from the different destinations and give us a hard time," said her older sister, Alyson, a teacher in Fayetteville, Ark. "In the summer she'd phone from San Francisco or Vancouver because she loved that she had to wear a sweater, rubbing it in about how hot and humid it is in Arkansas."

Yet one aspect of the itinerant life wore on Sara: in her first two years as a flight attendant she had about two dozen roommates. So at age 28 she had finally found a place of her own in the Beacon Hill area of Boston, the city from which she boarded Flight 11. "It had a fireplace and wooden floors," Alyson said. "Our mother went to Boston in the summer to help her clean it up, and it was going to be a real home.

There is a saying among police officers: "When people are in trouble, they call the cops. When cops are in trouble, they call Emergency Service." Santos Valentin Jr., a member of the New York Police Department's Emergency Service Squad 7, answered the call on Sept. 11.

Officer Valentin was a sharpshooter trained in counterterrorism tactics, said his sister, Sgt. Denise Valentin, and his family thought that if anyone could come out alive in this attack, it would be him.

What have lived on are the memories - of the jokes he played on his colleagues, of how he loved his dog, Luger (so much that he would leave the Animal Planet channel on for him when he was not home), of his love for family and friends, and of his bravery. Officer Valentin was not afraid of death, but he did hate funerals. So, a few days ago, his family gave him a send-off at the rubble of the World Trade Center, where he was last seen. He loved his Budweiser, so they poured him a can and said their goodbyes.

Long after her friends had left the nest and set up homes of their own, Doris Eng was still sharing an apartment in Flushing, Queens, with her mother, Sui-Kam Eng. Doris, club manager for Windows on the World on the 107th floor of 1 World Trade Center, was single-minded in her devotion to her mother, a garment worker whose husband died last year. "Everything she did was for my mom," her younger brother, Jerry, 27, said in a telephone interview as his mother sobbed in the background. "She cared about other people more than herself.""

Doris was also devoted to her work. A graduate of New York University, she had worked in some of the city's finest establishments — Le Cirque, the Mayfair Hotel and the Warwick Hotel — but her job at Windows was, he said, a dream come true. She worked from 6 a.m. until 5 p.m., and sometimes came in on the weekends."

A network administrator for the City Council, Jerry was on his way to work last Tuesday when he saw the first plane hit. He tried to make his way into the building to rescue his sister but was rebuffed by the police. "That's the hardest part," he said. "I witnessed everything happen."

You know how most people have to bend down to scratch their knee? Kenny Caldwell did not, because he had hands the size of baseball mitts and arms that went on forever. "He was a little slim Jimmy," said his mother, Elsie Caldwell, from his hometown, Philadelphia, "with big hands and a big, big heart. I called him my little chocolate drop."

Mr. Caldwell, 30, liked being a technology salesman for Alliance Consulting Group on the 102nd floor of 1 World Trade Center. But what he loved was figuring out ways to get people together. "I used to call him the C.E.O., chief entertainment officer," said his older brother, Leon Caldwell. He even invented an annual event: the International Kicknic Contest, held every August in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, for an ever-expanding circle of friends and family to play kickball and catch up.

"My neighbors used to tease me about him while he was growing up," Mrs. Caldwell said. "They'd say other kids collect stray cats and dogs, but your Kenny collects stray people."

Having three cats of her own did not stop Nancy Farley from feeding neighborhood strays and taking them to the veterinarian when needed. "If there was a snowstorm and she saw a cat, she would bring it in," recalled Linda Selnow, Ms. Farley's older sister. "She had the most caring heart."

Ms. Farley, 45, negotiated insurance claims at Reinsurance Solutions Inc., on the 94th floor of 1 World Trade Center. The youngest of three children, she lived with her husband, Robert, in a condominium in Jersey City; her brother lived upstairs. Her father died when she was in high school, and her mother died a decade ago. "Just the three of us were left, and we were very close," Ms. Selnow said.

Nancy and Robert married in Las Vegas a few years ago. Her sister and brother were there, front and center. "It was one of the greatest times the three of us had together," Ms. Selnow said. Except when she was cheering on her beloved Yankees, Ms. Farley was a quiet person. "We believe that she is in a better place," Ms. Selnow said. "It's just the pain of not knowing what happened or where she was."

David Suarez cared. He cared about people who did not have his opportunities, people who did not have his education, people who had to struggle. "He reached out to people in a very warm and genuine way," said Ted Suarez, his father. "Everyone remembered his smile. From a little boy, he had a smile that was very endearing."

Mr. Suarez, 24, was a systems consultant who worked for Deloitte Consulting. He reported each day to the office of his client, Marsh & McLennan, in the World Trade Center. He was in the process of sending out applications to colleges, because next fall he wanted to embark on an M.B.A. before returning to Deloitte. His hope was to go to Harvard.

But he always made time for the needy. Social concern was a family tradition. He volunteered for the nonprofit group New York Cares. He worked in soup kitchens and tutored high school students for their college entrance exams.

He always gave the disadvantaged the benefit of the doubt. Friends told a story about how they found him once talking to some beggars outside a bar. Mr. Suarez asked one of the beggars, who was in a wheelchair, "What would it take to make you happy?"

The man said, "Give me $20." Mr. Suarez gave him $20. The beggar got up, folded up his wheelchair and walked off.

Mr. Suarez was not angry. The episode did not make him jaded. He shrugged it off. By his thinking, he would rather lose $20 here and there to an impostor than risk spurning someone who really needed his help. He kept on giving.

Pictured above

About Me

Favorite Bible verses

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who proclaim the good news of peace... Isaiah 52:7

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9

Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me. Matthew 11:6For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. Ephesians 2:14